Just when we thought it couldn’t get any worse for the Obama administration, it did.
Faced with the ongoing fallout from the Department of Veteran’s Affairs debacle and the right wing, which is roused about the swap for an American soldier, President Barack Obama is once more looking down the barrel of insurgents in the Middle East, this time from a group calling itself the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
If the latest reports are true, the group, which even Al Qaeda has dismissed, is moving inexorably toward Baghdad. This has prompted the president to deploy some 275 troops to Iraq, mainly to fortify the security of the U.S. embassy there.
On Monday, Obama notified Congress that such action was necessary to protect personnel at the embassy, as well as to prepare for the possibility of their dispatching a contingent of Special Forces to train Iraqi troops, many of whom are poorly prepared to deal with the onslaught.
There are already more than 170 U.S. troops in Baghdad, according to some news accounts, and they are combat ready, Obama said. “This force will remain in Iraq until the security situation becomes such that it is no longer needed.”
Obviously, this measure of precaution is done against the backdrop of the tragedy the government encountered in Libya when the U.S. consulate in Benghazi was attacked in 2012. Four Americans were killed, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens.
Looming over this crisis is the issue of Iran, and Secretary of State John Kerry has been guarded in his statements about possible military coordination with Iran to resolve the increasingly volatile situation. The Republicans have yet another arrow in their quiver, returning to their criticism of Obama’s withdrawal of troops from Iraq.
The reports about the march of the insurgents have been gruesome, with a number of videos depicting the slaughter of unarmed Iraqi men by gunmen. Several major Iraqi cities have been taken, and there are film clips of Iraqi soldiers tossing aside their weapons and stripping off their uniforms in order to avoid being killed or taken captive.
Meanwhile, in Baghdad, thousands of young men, probably of the Shia faith, are apparently ready to defend the city against the Sunni insurgents, and therein lies the problem.
At the core of the uprising is an age-old dispute between the Sunnis and Shias that goes back to the seventh century. Both groups are prepared to fight to the death for the belief that they are the rightful descendants of the Prophet Muhammad, and this may be a far too simplistic way to explain a very complex disagreement.
Even so, nothing will be resolved until there is proper and equitable sharing of power in Iraq. The Sunni minority believe there is no equality and that Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki is disposed to grant preference to Shias.
As the Obama administration learned at its inception, there is no way an outsider can militarily, or even diplomatically, solve this problem. But Obama—as he has proved with the swap for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl—is not about to leave U.S. personnel at risk.
